Motorized roller shade comprising a long tubular tube with electric DC geared motor attached to the tubular tube with shade fabric mounting on the surface. The motor is coupled on one end of the tubular tube with the motor shaft end fixed to the mounting bracket or having the motor mounted externally. The other end of the tubular tube, wherein the slip ring end is fixed on the bracket allowing free spinning of the tubular tube. When wired remote or wireless remote control is activated, the wireless receiver sends the signal to the main micro controller. The controller energizes the motor causing the motor to roll up or down depending on which pole of the motor is being energized with positive or negative wire.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,368,328, 8,299,734 to Mullet disclosed a method and a high efficiency roller shade. However, the system lacked removable tubular tubes and removable color shade fabric. Within the tubular tube, the hollow space accommodated 6 to 8 D-cell alkaline, non-rechargeable batteries. The overall physical appearance of the tubular tube is bulky and lacking both internal and external color LED night lights. Furthermore, the system lacked automatic functionalities such as auto open and close window shade, auto home position correcting, programmable initial open shade home position, auto programming of new user desirable close shade position and programmable remote control add-ons.
The method in operating the high efficiency roller shade in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,368,328, 8,299,734 having undesirable drawbacks such as detecting the manual shade movement using a reed sensor as a switch to start the pulses count of the position encoder and the use of end-of-travel stop bar at the bottom of the shade to stop the motor and reset the position encoder counter to zero. When downward movement is detected by a reed switch, the micro controller begins counting the encoder generated by the rotation of the shade tube until the encoder pulses stop.
The method in operating the high efficiency roller shade in U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,368,328, 8,299,734 is based on the calculation and comparison to determine the displacement of the shade to the known maximum displacement. The calculation steps include linear displacement, distance/pulse conversion factor or pulse/distance conversion factor, outer diameter of shade tube, outer diameter of the fully-wrapped shade, the length of the shade tube, the thickness of the wrapped shade material. When moving the shade to the 100% open position, accumulated pulse counter is reset to 0 and the motor is stopped with an end-of-travel stop bar on the bottom of the shade engaging to the structure of the mounting brackets. Thus, having these undesirable drawbacks in calculating the number of pulses in order to determine shade position resulting in errors, inaccurate shade position, limited functionalities, no automatic programming and automatic operating features, having more external parts to break/replace and of course the cost of replacement parts and services.
In today world of technology, the uses of position encoders are quite common. Such position encoders include mechanical, laser, optical and magnetic. There are two different types of position encoders, linear and rotary. As the name implies, linear position encoders respond to motion along a path either in horizontal or vertical axis. Rotary position encoders respond to rotational motion. Such an example of rotary encoders is the volume knobs on a sound mixer. The position encoders are commonly categorized by means of the output as either absolute or incremental. The difference between absolute and incremental position encoders is that the absolute encoders provide an absolute numerical value for each angular position even over several revolutions while incremental encoders generate a precisely defined number of pulses per revolution by counting the pulse from a beginning point.
These two types of position encoders normally categorized as either absolute linear encoder, incremental linear encoder, absolute rotary encoder or incremental rotary encoder. Other type of incremental position encoder is incremental quadrature encoder. The incremental quadrature encoder is a bidirectional encoder using two output channels A and B to monitor both position and direction. Although, these position encoders are not limited to motorized roller shade. Variety of position encoders have been widely used in many applications, from robotics to automobiles. Such applications including DJ mixers, remote control toys, 3D printers, CNC machines, washer/dryer machines and many other consumer and industrial applications etc. Choosing the right position encoder in an application is very important and advantageous in cost saving, functionality, reliability and durability of life-long usage of the invention.
Despite a numerous number of inventions, many past and current motorized roller shades on the market suffered from the overall design characteristics, functionalities, durability, portability and cost. Many operated on external batteries, external wired remote control, infrared remote control and non-programmable remote control. Unfortunately, these are either do it yourself kit, heavy and bulky, not programmable, no auto home position correcting, too expensive, tubular tube and shade fabric is not removable, not fully automatic, no built-in color LED night lights, no backup rechargeable batteries and required at least 12 VDC or 120 VAC input power supply to operate resulting in waste energy, unsafe and unreliable.
Therefore, there is a need for a compact all-in-one automatic programmable and removable motorized roller shade with color LED night lights with many features and functionalities to solve the existing problems as well as improving the human living standards in today world of smart technology.